Teaching full time and managing at home

[frugalkitty]

If you teach full time and have kids of your own, how do you manage to keep on top of things at home? I'm thinking of going full time but I have a DH who works away, kids and elderly, poorly parents to factor in. What are you top tips for keeping all the plates spinning? Or is it a case of getting to the holidays and sorting it out then? (My kids aren't little, they know they'll have to step up and do more chores etc.)

Cleaner
Tumble dryer
Online shopping delivery
Gin

That's how I do it on 4 days with a business too and husband who works away!!

And batch cooking emergency dinners. I have s stash of lasagne, fish pie, Bolognese, chilli etc and always over cook when slow cooker is on and freeze some for those evenings where cooking is not an option.

I also confers to feeding my kids fish fingers more than I probably should.

Thanks Belinda I did think if I was working full time we'd have the money for things like a cleaner or getting the ironing done.

When I go back full time, we'll be getting a cleaner. I also have 10 hours of commuting a week to factor in.

Nowt wrong with a fish finger sandwich for tea

I tried without and lost my shit as I was still doing everything.

We got a cleaner or else 😆

DD1 does all ironing, DH does all cooking (batch cooks every weekend). DD2 helps with the washing. I clean/tidy up but have low(-ish) standards. As long as the kitchen/bathroom are clean and I can still see the floor of the living room, then it has to do. I do tons of work in the school holidays, so I prepped every lesson up to October half term in the 6 weeks holidays. I have to tweak stuff depending on the class and the pace etc, but making/finding resources is all done in the holidays.

It's hard work though, mainly because my DDs do a lot of activities in the evenings and I don't want them to stop doing the things they enjoy. I feel like I can just fit it in, but I have no downtime. I'm constantly worrying that if my workloads increase anymore the house of cards will collapse and I'll end up being off work with stress or something.

Cleaner
A DH who does his fair share. Not just cleaning and cooking but also child admin like party invitations and drs appointments.
Only having one DC
Not sure I could cope otherwise.

Reading with interest because I have just started teacher training with 2 secondary aged kids at home and husband who works away a lot and late the rest of the time.

I have started getting DC to do a load of washing a week each, DS1(14) does all shirts and irons his own, DS2 (12) washes and changes towels. And I have got a cleaner who also changes beds and washes bed linen.

I have bought a some meals for the freezer from Cook, expensive but OK quality and good in an emergency. Tried Hello Fresh this week, DS2 is keen to cook and though it might be doable for him to cook them. Really disappointed by the quality and if I didn't have 50% off they would be crazy expensive so not the answer I was looking for. Think it will be jacket potatoes and fish finger butties for us - trying not to stoop to cereal.

It's the child admin that's the real pain for me.

Also have to leave school at 5ish and can't get in much before 8 which doesn't seem long enough. There is no IT to work remotely and I'm struggling to know how best to get organised to work effectively at home. Can any experienced teachers offer any tips?

I'm going from full time to part time. Single mum. Mine are young though.

Get Christmas done by October.

We have three under 8 and both work full time as primary teachers. It’s mental!
We have a cleaner, we don’t iron anything except shirts, batch cook on weekends. DH does his fair share and things work just about ok.
I went full time when youngest was 1 so about 3 years ago and wouldn’t go back (3 days PT previously) my job is so much more rewarding being there full time and I didn’t find part time gave me much more life back.

Loosely following ‘the organised mum method’ to keep on top of tidying, and a cleaner then to do the cleaning of the newly tidy house!

Meal planning. Really excellent childcare and school dinners where the DC get a proper hot meal with pudding in the middle of the day and therefore don’t need a massively elaborate dinner as their evening meal.

@NotAPenguin I'm not experienced, but my solution last year when I was training and had an insane commute was to buy a decent external harddrive, and download all the stuff I needed from school (e.g. resources, assessments, markschemes etc onto that), so I could plan and mark at home. In school, I prioritised things I needed SIMs for (which I couldn't access externally), printing for the next day and anything I needed to do physically in school e.g. displays.

I did lug a lot of books and assessments to and from school, but as long as you have a car, that's do-able.

Anything I needed for uni assignments/evidence, I'd scan and email to myself.

I hope that helps a bit?

OneDrive is your friend, especially if you use it in school.

No more "oh god I forgot my hard drive" moments.

Op, what are your reasons for going ft? If it's purely financial, do the sums first! I went from 5 to 4 days, and the difference in my salary drop was much less than I thought. I'm top of pay scale, UPS3 plus a TLR. My take home pay reduced by about £400 per month.
Getting a cleaner, paying for the ironing to be done, buying more expensive ready meals all adds up.
An increase in your salary will lead to an increase in national insurance, tax, pension and union subscriptions. Just be sure the financial gains are worth it!

Even 3 years on 4 days a week really scuppered my pension though. Union subscriptions were also the same for 4 days a week as 5. I only pay £48 a month for a cleaner for two hours every two weeks(admittedly I have a tiny flat), so the sums for 5 days definitely add up for me.

@SansaSnark Thanks very much for that. I really do need to get organised and try to make sure that I'm just doing stuff at school that needs doing there. Part of the problem is that I am super busy on a Friday (3 lessons teaching + mentor meeting, then training off site), then teach first 3 periods Monday. It's taking a huge effort to leave on Friday with what I need to prep for Monday and I'm not managing to get any further ahead than that. I need to take organisation to a much higher level than I'm used to.

@BelindasGleeTeam OneDrive might be a real help, thanks for that. I've left my memory stick at home once already, and also copied my files to the desktop rather than my stick (tho I guess I can make that cock up with OneDrive too). It looks like my school do use it.